The Future of Dragon Ball FighterZ

Back in January 2018, Dragon Ball FighterZ debuted in a perfect storm. Not only was it a fast-paced 3v3 fighting game based on the famous shōnen series and developed by the popular Arc System Works, but it also garnered a lot of hype towards its release with fun showings and betas compared to the then-recent and negatively received 2v2 fighting game, Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite. It has been supported with three seasons of extra content over the last four years, culminating with 19 additional characters as well as new mechanics.

Although it’s been popular enough to sell 8 million units, a critical flaw of the game that’s only become more relevant recently has been its online netcode. Nearly a year since the last character release there have been increasing predictions and hopes that the game will be reworked with rollback netcode, a surprise new season of characters will drop, or that a sequel is in the works due to the game’s success. What has thrown a wrench in all of this was the announcement that a new character in the form of “Android 21 (Lab Coat)” was coming soon.

The announcement caught a lot of people by surprise. Aside from the first season which released characters in pairs, most of the DLC characters were released individually with 1-3 months between. The final character to be released was Gogeta (SS4).

Not only was he given a perfect spot right in the middle of the roster, but his undebatable status as the strongest character in the series’ media (pre-Dragon Ball Super) felt like he was the perfect final character to add. Months of silence about any new characters cemented the idea that the game likely wouldn’t be supported further besides any bug fixes or perhaps a balance patch.

It was also a surprise because Android 21 is already a character from the base roster of the game. That’s not to say that having multiple versions of a character is an oddity for the game as there are five or arguably six separate versions of Goku after all. Among all the unique characters from the series that haven’t made it into the game though, it does feel strange to have a new version taken up by the only original character from the game.

Conversely, it makes some sense from a financial standpoint. Android 21 from the base roster is a Majin transformed version of her that has a tail and unique absorption techniques. Android 21 (Lab Coat) is the non-transformed version of her without those traits so she naturally has to play differently. This version of her was already present in the game throughout the story mode so they don’t have to create a character entirely from scratch with her.

Discussions about a potential fourth season of characters naturally popped up with the announcement. The announcement of a new character after a season finished has typically coincided with a confirmation that a new season was coming. That wasn’t the case with Android 21 (Lab Coat). Some argue that it would make sense to announce a new season at the end of the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Championship Finals instead of the Japanese finals. This reveal wasn’t a full trailer either and felt a bit more like a teaser.

Others have argued that revealing a character that’s likely cheaper to make and not a heavily requested or fan-favorite one would indicate that this might be more of a one-off sort of deal. Both the second and third seasons drummed up a lot of hype with which characters they chose to start the season off with. Furthermore, every DLC character has had a significant amount of fans wanting them in the game and the same can’t be said about a new version of Android 21.

Stepping away from the specific possibility of more characters, the fact that even one character is being made calls into question if the game is still going to have content made for it. Gogeta (SS4) truly felt like a final character and many assumed that the absence of a new season last year meant a sequel was being worked on.

Bandai Namco announced that Dragon Ball FighterZ sold eight million units the same month they announced that Tekken 7 did. That’s an incredible number for a fighting game and it speaks volumes that the former can be up there with the latest version of the company’s top fighting game series. Working on a sequel to replicate that success and possibly exceed it makes a lot of sense.

A sequel would also be a great way to solve the game’s glaring netcode problem. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the desire for proper online netcode has finally become a huge priority in fighting games. A game can be updated or retrofitted with rollback netcode, but it’s not an easy undertaking to implement in a game that wasn’t developed with it in mind.

Developing a sequel with rollback netcode is a great way to circumvent that problem. It’s far easier to add and it can be presented as a great selling point for players. Since Bandai Namco are the ones publishing the game, they also might not be as open to funding the costly implementation of rollback into the game as having it in a sequel.

Releasing a new character seems counter-intuitive towards working on a new game. The only exception I can think of is the final DLC character for Street Fighter V is an important character for the next entry in the series. Even then, that’s an entirely separate situation as Street Fighter V had a rough road and there were rumors of the next entry having issues in development as well.

Whether it leads to more characters or not, many are taking this new addition to the roster as a sign that a sequel isn’t being worked on or won’t be announced for a while longer. Considering that we only know that Arc System Works has Guilty Gear Strive DLC and some form of co-development with Eighting on DNF Duel that they’re working on, it wouldn’t be out of the question to see them working on another project. It would make a lot of sense for Bandai Namco to ask them to create a follow-up to Dragon Ball FighterZ. Again though, a new character release makes the theory less believable.

It’s also hard to imagine Bandai Namco throwing out much more money for DLC development costs. Each season pass has become progressively smaller in terms of characters and Android 21 (Lab Coat) seemingly using an already-existing model paints a picture of cost-efficiency.

What’s fun to theorize is what else could be added besides characters. Bringing up Tekken 7 again, that game’s fourth season pass consisted of two characters. As tiny as that seems, it also offered two new stages. New stages have been a huge request for Dragon Ball FighterZ since the game’s first season and only one additional stage was ever added. Even if a new hypothetical season was light on characters, content like stages or alternate skins would appease a lot of people.

No matter what the future holds, we’re likely to find out this weekend during the two-day DRAGON BALL Games Battle Hour event. All matter of Dragon Ball content is set to be celebrated from the upcoming Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero film, to tournaments for Dragon Ball FighterZ. Android 21 (Lab Coat) will also be played in the hands of the top players and have a character breakdown.

Last month it was announced that the World Championship Finals would be indefinitely postponed due to COVID-19 precautions. With no clear date for the finals in sight, many are hoping that more information about the future of the game is still shown near the end of the Dragon Ball FighterZ segment. Personally, I want to believe there’s something more that was planned out besides this one character. All I know is that it’s going to be a long wait until this weekend.

In consideration of everyone’s safety under the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made the difficult decision to indefinitely postpone the DRAGON BALL FighterZ World Championship Finals, which was scheduled in February.

Please check the images for details. #DBFZWC pic.twitter.com/JCedqwy6Zm

— Bandai Namco Esports (@BNEesports) January 26, 2022